American Beauty | Film | The Guardian American Beauty The Oscar-winning actor stars with Jake Gyllenhaal in this week’s oddball comedy-drama Demolition, but what have been his smartest career choices? Published: 29 Apr 2016 Thomas Batten shares executives’ latest pitches for revamping beloved classics from the 90s and early 2000s, involving the Kardashians, Instagram and millennials Published: 25 Nov 2015 Join us as we pick five of Spacey’s top film roles, and let us know which you would add Published: 28 Nov 2014 American beauty In the furore about Mena Suvari and the roses, it was easy to miss the understated yet incandescent screen presence of Thora Birch as Kevin Spacey's daughter. Now audiences are realising what insiders have known since she was six - that Thora Birch is Hollywood's brightest young star (just ask her mum).

Published: 15 Apr 2001 American Beauty | The Last Contract | Chance or Coincidence | The League of Gentlemen Published: 30 Jul 2000 American Beauty in video row Published: 22 May 2000 American Beauty's screen kiss is too hot for MTV Dreamworks, the studio behind Oscar-winning American Beauty has refused to let MTV use a clip of Kevin Spacey and Mena Suvari in a clinch for the network's ninth annual Movie Awards, despite the smooch snagging a viewers' nomination for best onscreen kiss. Published: 21 Apr 2000 Introducing Thora and friends... American Beauty has won critical praise and countless Oscar nominations. But little attention has been paid to the cast's youthful core. Righting that wrong, Vanessa Thorpe salutes Thora Birch, Mena Suvari and Wes Bentley, while Akin Ojumu imagines what Thora might do next Published: 27 Feb 2000 Suburbia. The ever-spruce Carolyn Burnham (Annette Bening) stands before the curtains of her latest property, a slightly down-at-heel condo.

Her eyes brighten; she straightens her back. Published: 16 Feb 2000 Warehouse man makes Oscar history With a stack of Golden Globes already on the mantelpiece, and his trophy cabinet filling fast, Sam Mendes made yet more Hollywood history yesterday when American Beauty was nominated for eight Oscars - the most by a first time foreign director and more than any other film this year. Published: 16 Feb 2000 Sam Mendes - IMDb IMDb Producer | Director | Miscellaneous Crew Samuel Alexander Mendes was born on August 1, 1965 in Reading, England, UK to parents James Peter Mendes, a retired university lecturer, and Valerie Helene Mendes, an author who writes children's books. Their marriage didn't last long, James divorced Sam's mother in 1970 when Sam was just 5-years-old. Sam was educated at Cambridge University and ... See full bio » Born: Famous Directors: From Sundance to Prominence From Christopher Nolan to Quentin Tarantino and every Coen brother in between, many of today's most popular directors got their start at the Sundance Film Festival .

Here's a list of some of the biggest names to go from Sundance to Hollywood prominence. a list of 40 people created 11 Apr 2013 a list of 28 people created 02 Apr 2015 a list of 42 people created 11 Nov 2015 a list of 25 people created 10 Dec 2015 a list of 46 people created 01 Jan 2016 Do you have a demo reel? Add it to your IMDbPage How much of Sam Mendes's work have you seen? User Polls Won 1 Oscar. Another 38 wins & 26 nominations.

See more awards » Known For 2013 Shrek the Musical (producer: Neal Street Productions Ltd.) 2012/I Blood (executive producer) 2014 King Lear (TV Movie) (directed for the stage) 1998 Little Voice (director: original stage production) 1996 Company (TV Movie) (stage director) 1993 Cabaret (TV Movie) (stage director) Hide 2001 The Anniversary Party (special thanks) Hide 2016 World Film Report (TV Series) Himself 2016 Spectre: Bond's Biggest Opening Sequence (Video documentary short) Himself 2016 Spectre: Video Blogs (Video short) Himself 2015 Toast of London (TV Series) Himself 2012-2015 Cinema 3 (TV Series) Himself 2015 Inside Spectre with Richard Wilkins (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2010-2015 Días de cine (TV Series) Himself 2015 Entertainment Tonight (TV Series) Himself - Director, Spectre 2002-2014 Charlie Rose (TV

 Series) Himself - Guest 2013 Skyfall: Modern Day Bond (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2013 Shooting Bond (Video documentary) Himself 2013 Skyfall Premiere (Video short) Himself 2013 Bond's Greatest Moments (TV Movie documentary) Himself 2012 The Secrets of Skyfall (TV Short documentary) Himself 2012 Skyfall Video Blogs (Video documentary short) Himself 2009 The Culture Show (TV Series documentary) Himself 2002-2008 HBO First Look (TV Series documentary) Himself 2006 Film 2016 (TV Series) Himself 2006 Background (Video documentary short) Himself 2006 Jarhead Diaries (Video documentary short) Himself 2006 Semper Fi (Video documentary short) Himself 2005 El Magacine (TV Series) Himself 2000 American Beauty: Look Closer...

(Video documentary short) Himself Himself - Nominee: Best Direction of a Musical 1997 Brunch (TV Series) : Directed "Uncle Vanya", a play by Anton Chekhov (Donmar Warehouse, London, England, UK). See more » Publicity Listings: 6 Interviews | 4 Articles | 1 Pictorial | See more » Height: Did You Know? Personal Quote: "I feel very undeserving. I feel the award is a bank loan, which I'll take out and pay back by the end of 20 years, and by then I'll feel more deserving." - On receiving his Lifetime Achievement award from the Directors Guild of Great Britain. See more » Trivia: Ex-son-in-law of Roger Winslet . See more » Trademark: Often begins his films with a voice-over narration from the main character; at the end of the movie the character finishes his narration in very much the same way it began. See more » Nickname: American Beauty - Rolling Stone American Beauty All Stories The fall film season kicks off in high gear with American Beauty, a comedy of shocking gravity that comes front-loaded with advance raves and Oscar talk.

Now the question is: Since buzz can lead to backlash — check those Blair Witch spoilsports — can Beauty stay unbruised? Let's hope so. Made for a $5 million pittance by the megabucks boys at DreamWorks — Steven Spielberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen — American Beauty is a triumph of acting, writing and directing that defies glib description. Is the film farce, tragedy, thriller, fantasy, sitcom, skin flick or moral fable? Yes to all of the above. More News All Stories Kevin Spacey, in a knockout performance, nails every comic and poignant nuance in the role of Lester Burnham, a suburban Everyman whose life is coming apart. We first meet Lester when he's jerking off in the shower. "Funny thing is," he says in voiceover narration, "this is the high point of my day." Lester's not kidding. His wife, Carolyn, acted with go-for-broke intensity by Annette Bening, is an emotionally clenched real estate agent. Carolyn's turn-ons — her rose garden, money and motivational tapes, and the image of success she strives to maintain — do not include her husband.

"See the way the handle on her pruning shears matches her gardening clogs?" asks Lester. "That's not an accident." So far, so sitcom. Or so you might think, since screenwriter Alan Ball, making his feature debut, has previously done TV time on Grace Under Fire and Cybill. (Ball's new ABC series, Oh Grow Up, premieres on September 22nd.) But there are no network rules to constrict Ball this time. As a result, he's done something extraordinary: He's turned the cliches of sitcom upside down. His marvel of a screenplay puts flesh on stereotypes and then — testing for signs of humanity — pricks them until they bleed. The clever brushstrokes of television writing yield to a depth of characterization that allows for fear, feeling and that network bugaboo, ambiguity. The suburbanites of American Beauty — young and old — have interior lives that encompass different ideas of beauty and truth. You don't peg these people at a glance; they keep springing surprises. Take Lester. Right off the bat, he tells us he'll be dead in less than a year. Who'd kill this unremarkable man?

In waking up from the slumber of suburbia, Lester manages to piss off family, friends and neighbors by speaking the truth. He tells his boss at the media publication where he's been whoring for the advertising industry for fourteen years that "my job consists of basically masking my contempt for the assholes in charge." He prefers working at a burger joint, trying to recapture the remembered joy of his adolescence. In bed next to his sleeping wife, Lester masturbates while fantasizing about Angela (Mena Suvari), a high school Lolita he dreams of bathing in a tub full of roses. When Carolyn wakes up appalled, he says, "Guess what? The new me whacks off when he feels horny, because you're obviously not going to help me out in that department." Lester asks his two gay neighbors, Jim (Scott Bakula) and Jim (Sam Robards), for workout tips ("I want to look good naked") and buys pot from Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), the kid pusher and former mental patient next door. Colonel Fitts (Chris Cooper), Ricky's ramrod Marine dad, is as oblivious to his son's drug activities as he is to his near-comatose wife (Allison Janney).

He mistakenly thinks Lester is paying his boy for blow jobs. Instead, Ricky is upstairs with his digicam, filming Lester's teen daughter, Jane (Thora Birch), as she strips, crawls into bed and rages about a father who has never known best. It's the image of Jane on Ricky's TV monitor that begins the film. "I need a father who's a role model," says Jane, "not some horny geek boy who's gonna spray his shorts whenever I bring a girlfriend home from school. What a lame-o. Somebody should really put him out of his misery." "Want me to kill him for you?" asks Ricky. "Yeah, would you?" says Jane, laughing. That's the setup, encompassing whiplash changes of mood, all of which British director Sam Mendes orchestrates with exquisite control and fluid grace. Mendes, 33, makes a stunning debut in films after scoring theatrical sensations in London and New York with The Blue Room, starring Nicole Kidman, and the musical Cabaret, now more vital than ever on Broadway with Susan Egan bringing dazzling new life to Sally Bowles. Mendes' skill with actors is abundantly evident in American Beauty.

Birch, a former child actress ( Patriot Games ), glimmers with grown-up radiance, while Suvari ( American Pie ) uncovers the self-loathing that Angela tries to hide. Newcomer Wes Bentley emerges as a major find, able to hold his own with Spacey, Bening and Cooper, who gives the colonel untapped reserves of passion. You expect Mendes to shine at dialogue and performance. What's astonishing is this theater man's visual sophistication. With the invaluable contribution of cinematographer Conrad Hall ( A Civil Action ), Mendes creates a world of boxes and traps that can be escaped only through fantasy or violence. Lester hurls a plate of asparagus against the wall to shock his family into recognizing his existence. Carolyn, who finds no solace in an affair with a real estate king (Peter Gallagher), slaps her daughter and even herself to feel alive. Angela seeks validation that she's not "ordinary" by playing the cock tease. Out of deep loneliness, the rigid colonel beats Ricky, who turns to Jane for the comfort he can't find at home. And in this love story, touchingly played by Birch and Bentley, a healing tenderness breaks through the isolation.

Ricky is transfixed by a particular image that he has caught on video. It's of a plastic bag being whipped around by the wind in an empty parking lot. "It was one of those days when it's a minute away from snowing and there's this electricity in the air," Ricky tells Jane. "You can almost hear it, right?"Jane studies the image hard to see the beauty that Ricky sees. "This bag was, like, dancing with me," he says. "And that's the day I knew there was this entire life behind things." It's the life behind things that American Beauty catches as Mendes whips the audience around from humor to horror to something poetic and humane. The result is the kind of artful defiance that Hollywood is usually too timid to deliver: a jolting comedy that makes you laugh till it hurts. Don’t Miss a Story Sign up for our newsletter to receive breaking news directly in your inbox. We may use your e-mail address to send you the newsletter and offers that may interest you, on behalf of Rolling Stone and its partners.

For more information please read our Privacy Policy How we use your email address Trending Ranked on a scale from 1 to 10, the trending score reflects the number of users reading a story in real time. What is this? 'American Beauty' Director To Head Venice Film Festival Jury 'American Beauty' Director To Head Venice Film Festival Jury Duration: 00:49 EMAIL Organizers of the Venice Film Festival say Oscar-winning British director Sam Mendes will head the jury that will choose winners in this year's competition. In announcing Mendes' appointment Wednesday, organizers said the director has "established himself as one of the most highly respected film directors of recent years." According to The Associated Press, the 50-year-old Mendes was quoted as saying that his "happiest film festival memory is launching 'Road to Perdition' at Venice in 2002." Mendes' directorial debut, "American Beauty," won five Oscars, including best director and best picture. The Venice Film Festival is the world's oldest film festival. It's holding its 73rd edition this year.

READ MORE American Beauty Mendes’ influence on American Beauty | GradeSaver Buy Study Guide The original script for American Beauty was markedly different from the finished product (the shooting script). The script that Alan Ball, the screenwriter, sent to Sam Mendes , the director, began with Jane and Ricky being put on trial for the murder of Lester Burnham . In the original script, Angela testifies against Jane in court, and Colonel Fitts brings in the tape he finds of Jane offering Ricky three thousand dollars to kill her father. The viewers learn that the tape was a joke immediately after Ricky turns off the camera - but one second too late for the defense. Also, the extended shot over the town with Lester's voice-over in the background that begins the shooting script originally included Lester in his pajamas, flying Superman-like over the town and landing in his own bed. Mendes filmed the script almost as written, but afterwards he and editor Tariq Anwar made substantial changes, to the surprise of most of the cast and crew. Mendes cut the trial out entirely, and also eliminated the "Lester-flying" fantasy. He preserved Ricky and Jane's impact on the film by increasing their on-camera time throughout the movie.

Mendes' cuts had a tremendous affect on the themes and impact of the story. The question of guilt and the manipulation of evidence played a large role in the original film, but by editing out the trial Mendes shifted the focus from Lester Burnham's death to Lester Burnham's life. In hindsight, it seems possible that the original script would have produced a more unbalanced, less poignant film than the final product. Of course the universally exceptional work turned in by the actors was an important component in the film's success, but Mendes' cuts also had a significant influence on how these roles were perceived. In shifting the ultimate meaning of the film, Mendes essentially turned all of the roles into "character parts" rather than mainstream leading roles. It seems likely that Mendes' background as a theatre director strongly influenced his approach to American Beauty. Mendes was used to directing stories that focused on character development and questions of perspective rather than a rapidly-moving plot. Furthermore, his work on the stage may have made him more comfortable with the less realistic aspects of American Beauty (such as Lester's fantasy sequences).

Another aspect of Mendes' background that may have influenced his choices for the film is the fact that he is a British - rather than an American - director. Generally speaking, character-driven films are more widely accepted in Britain than they are in the United States. While American blockbusters are unquestionably popular in the U.K., British directors seem to have more freedom to explore characters who are not particularly admirable, important, or even likeable. In transforming American Beauty from a whodunit thriller into a deeply cerebral exploration of the human condition, Mendes went against the stereotypes that were thought to appeal to American audiences.

1999 Academy Awards® Winners and History The Sixth Sense (1999) Actor: KEVIN SPACEY in "American Beauty," Russell Crowe in "The Insider," Richard Farnsworth in "The Straight Story," Sean Penn in "Sweet and Lowdown," Denzel Washington in "The Hurricane" Actress: HILARY SWANK in "Boys Don't Cry", Annette Bening in "American Beauty", Janet McTeer in "Tumbleweeds", Julianne Moore in "The End of the Affair", Meryl Streep in "Music of the Heart" Supporting Actor: MICHAEL CAINE in "The Cider House Rules", Tom Cruise in "Magnolia", Michael Clarke Duncan in "The Green Mile", Jude Law in "The Talented Mr.

Ripley", Haley Joel Osment in "The Sixth Sense" Supporting Actress: ANGELINA JOLIE in "Girl, Interrupted", Toni Collette in "The Sixth Sense", Catherine Keener in "Being John Malkovich", Samantha Morton in "Sweet and Lowdown", Chloe Sevigny in "Boys Don't Cry" Director: SAM MENDES for "American Beauty", Spike Jonze for "Being John Malkovich", Lasse Hallstrom for "The Cider House Rules", Michael Mann for "The Insider", M. Night Shyamalan for "The Sixth Sense" Among this year's varied Oscar contenders, British-London theatrical-stage director Sam Mendes' debut feature film American Beauty, a quirky, grim dark comedy/drama about the contemporary American family from DreamWorks, was the top Oscar-winning film (with eight significant nominations and five wins). With an ensemble cast, the low-budget film viewed a dysfunctional family's angst and crisis in suburbia. It was shot for roughly $12.5 million in 55 days. Significant images included symbolically-used, computer-generated rose petals, and the sight of a wind-tossed plastic garbage bag.

It was the first non-historical epic (or non-period film) to win the top honor since Silence of the Lambs (1991) . Its five Oscars included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Cinematography (Conrad L. Hall with his second Oscar following a previous win for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) ) and Best Original Screenplay (Alan Ball). This was the fourth instance (in the past five years) that the Best Picture-winning film was based on an original screenplay. American Beauty lost its three nominations for Best Actress, Best Film Editing, and Best Original Score (Thomas Newman). Hilary Swank's win as Best Actress for Boys Don't Cry (over Annette Bening) kept American Beauty from sweeping the 'Big Five' honors.

The first of the other heavily-nominated Best Picture nominees (below) was the only one that won Oscars: director Lasse Hallstrom's and Miramax's coming of age story The Cider House Rules (with seven nominations and two wins), set within a New England orphanage/abortion clinic, with two Oscars, Best Adapted Screenplay (by John Irving for his own 1985 novel) and Best Supporting Actor (Michael Caine). Its other nominations included Best Picture, Best Director, Best Score, Best Film Editing and Best Art Direction director Michael Mann's scathing and compelling The Insider (with seven nominations and no wins), a serious, based-on-a-true-story film about tobacco-industry controversies (Best Picture, Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Cinematography, Best Film Editing and Best Sound) India-born, 29 year-old director M.

Night Shyamalan's dark-horse favorite and most successful of the nominees, the plot-twisting The Sixth Sense (with six nominations and no wins), the immensely-popular, psychological horror-thriller about a precocious young boy named Cole (Haley Joel Osment) who saw visions of ghosts ("I see dead people") and sought help from a child psychologist (Bruce Willis) (Best Supporting Actor, two for M. Night Shyamalan for Best Director and Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Film Editing) writer/director Frank Darabont's The Green Mile (with four nominations and no wins), a lengthy film about a magical death-row inmate and his pet mouse (Mr. Jingles) - the second of Darabont's versions of a Stephen King adaptation set in a prison (Best Picture, Best Supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Sound) Except for Lasse Hallstrom, who had a previous Best Director nomination for My Life as a Dog (1988), the other four Best Director nominees were all first-time contenders.

The Green Mile was the sole Best Picture-nominated film to not have its director, Frank Darabont, nominated - he was replaced by Spike Jonze for Being John Malkovich. Four other films received fewer than expected nominations and meager awards: Topsy-Turvy (with four nominations and two wins), about Gilbert and Sullivan, lacked Best Director and Best Picture nominations but scored two Oscar wins: Best Costume Design and Best Makeup. Its other two nominations were for director Mike Leigh's Best Original Screenplay and Best Art Direction The Talented Mr.

Ripley (with five nominations and no wins) - Best Supporting Actor (Jude Law), Best Adapted Screenplay (by writer/director Anthony Minghella), Best Original Score, Best Art Direction, and Best Costume Design the peculiarly weird and original Being John Malkovich (with three nominations and no wins) - Best Director (Spike Jonze), Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener), and Best Original Screenplay (Charlie Kaufman) Magnolia (with three nominations and no wins) - Best Supporting Actor (Tom Cruise), Best Original Screenplay (Paul Thomas Anderson), and Best Original Song ("Save Me" by Aimee Mann) Kevin Spacey won the Best Actor Academy Award for an inspiring performance in American Beauty (his second career nomination and second Oscar win) - as rebellious, beleaguered and doomed Lester Burnham, a casualty of suburban family life who faced a mid-career crisis, dropped out from his job for the advertising magazine Media Monthly, worked at a fast-food joint called Mr. Smiley's, and lusted after his daughter's best high-school friend and temptress Angela (Mena Suvari). Spacey previously won the Best Supporting Actor award for The Usual Suspects (1995).

[Spacey became the 10th performer to win Oscars in both the lead and supporting categories, following after Helen Hayes, Jack Lemmon, Ingrid Bergman, Maggie Smith, Robert DeNiro, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, Gene Hackman, and Jessica Lange.] The other nominees in the Best Actor category included: 79 year-old "Grey Fox" Richard Farnsworth (with his second and last career nomination, and first Best Actor nomination) became the oldest lead actor nominee ever for his moving role as ailing, 73 year-old Iowan widower Alvin Straight, who journeyed from Laurens, IA to Mount Zion, WI on a riding lawn-mower for a reunion with his sick brother in director David Lynch's low-key true story The Straight Story [Farnsworth's first nomination was as Best Supporting Actor for Comes a Horsemen (1978)] Denzel Washington (with his fourth nomination), the only nominee in director Norman Jewison's The Hurricane as the falsely-accused middleweight boxer Rubin "Hurricane" Carter. This was a widely-praised film that had been a leading contender for Best Picture honors. Washington's fourth nomination established a record for an African-American actor.

[Previous nominations and wins: Best Actor nomination for Malcolm X (1992), Best Supporting Actor nomination for Cry Freedom (1987), and an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Glory (1989).] Sean Penn (with his second nomination) as a womanizing, unreliable, but talented 1930s jazz guitarist Emmet Ray in Woody Allen's minor semi-biographical Sweet and Lowdown. [His previous nomination was for Best Actor in Dead Man Walking (1995)] New Zealand-born 35 year-old Russell Crowe (with his first nomination) for playing a tortured 53-year old tobacco company executive turned whistle-blowing crusader Jeffrey Wigand in The Insider In the Best Actress category, newcomer first-time nominee (and ex-Beverly Hills 90210 star) Hilary Swank won the Oscar for her audacious, gender-reversed role as doomed, real-life Nebraskan 20 year-old Brandon Teena (nee Teena Brandon), who was raped and murdered for cross-dressing in director Kimberly Peirce's debut independent film Boys Don't Cry.

She played a member of the opposite sex, although she was a pre-operative transsexual, biological female.

[Note: Linda Hunt won Best Supporting Actress for The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) for playing a man - she was the first female actress to win an Oscar for playing a gender-switched character role - a character of the opposite sex.] The other Best Actress nominees were: Meryl Streep (with her twelfth career nomination, 20 years after her first Oscar (for Best Supporting Actress) and 17 years after her second Oscar (for Best Actress), and 21 years after her first nomination, and tying Katharine Hepburn's record of 12 for the most acting nominations), as East Harlem elementary school music-violin teacher Roberta Tsavaras in director Wes Craven's critically-disparaged Music of the Heart [Note: This was Streep's 10th Best Actress nomination, and fourth Best Actress nomination in the 90s.] Annette Bening (with her second career nomination) as the 'perfect' bitchy suburban, real-estate agent wife Caroline Burnham in American Beauty [Bening's first nomination was Best Supporting Actress for The Grifters (1990)] British actress Janet McTeer (with her first nomination) as the saucy, single mother

/divorcee Mary Jo Walker in Gavin O'Connor's mother-daughter drama Tumbleweeds Julianne Moore (with her second career nomination) as the obsessed, philandering mistress-lover Sarah Miles in the film adaptation of Graham Greene's WWII romantic drama The End of the Affair [Note: Moore's first nomination was Best Supporting Actress for Boogie Nights (1997)] The Best Supporting Actor category was won by Michael Caine (with his fifth career nomination and his second Oscar win in the category - he never won a Best Actor Oscar!) as the St.

Cloud Orphanage's kind, ether-addicted abortion-gynecologist Dr. Wilbur Larch in The Cider House Rules. In his performance, he was noted for his encouraging farewell words, in a New England accent, to the children at bedtime each night: "Good night, you Princes of Maine, you Kings of New England." Caine won the same award for Hannah and Her Sisters (1986).

[Four Britons were nominated for acting in this year: Caine, Law, Morton, and McTeer.] The other Best Supporting Actor nominees included: Michael Clarke Duncan (with his first nomination) for his role as the giant, simple-minded, miracle-working healer, and wrongly-convicted rapist/killer prison inmate John Coffey in a 1935 Louisiana prison in the fantasy-drama The Green Mile Tom Cruise (with his third career nomination and no previous Oscars) for his uninhibited role as crass, misogynistic, self-help sex promoter/speaker-guru and co-star Jason Robards' estranged son Frank "T.J." Mackey in writer/director/producer Paul Thomas Anderson's character study of lives intertwined one day in San Fernando Valley, California - Magnolia Jude Law (with his first nomination) for his performance as Dickie Greenleaf, the wealthy, carefree, decadent and victimized boyfriend/playboy of co-star Gwyneth Paltrow in The Talented Mr.

Ripley 11 year-old Haley Joel Osment, the youngest of the nominees for his precocious performance as Cole Sear - a nine year-old boy with secretive psychic powers who can see spirits of dead people ("I see dead people"), in the surprise blockbuster The Sixth Sense All were first-time nominees in the Best Supporting Actress category: Angelina Jolie won her first Oscar for her stunning performance as Lisa, a disturbed and rebellious mental hospital patient in director James Mangold's Girl, Interrupted (the film's only Oscar). [Her father, Jon Voight had won the Best Actor Oscar a generation ago as a crippled Vietnam veteran in Coming Home (1978).

They joined the only other father-daughter Oscar winners from the past: Henry Fonda (for On Golden Pond (1981)) and Jane Fonda (for Klute (1971) and Coming Home (1978)).] The other first-time Best Supporting Actress nominees were: Australian actress Toni Collette for her role as struggling, single working mother Lynn Sear with a troubled child in The Sixth Sense Catherine Keener as John Malkovich's aloof, bewitching office co-worker Maxine Lund in the under-nominated Being John Malkovich Samantha Morton for her role as the shy, waifish, mute laundress Hattie - abandoned by her boyfriend and befriended by a disillusioned jazz guitarist (co-star Sean Penn), in Woody Allen's Sweet and Lowdown Chloe Sevigny as co-star transvestite Hilary Swank's love-struck, teenaged romantic partner Lana in the dramatic, low-budget independent film Boys Don't Cry [Note: Four other actresses were previously nominated and won an Oscar (both lead and supporting) for mute roles, including: Jane Wyman in Johnny Belinda (1948), Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker (1962), Marlee Matlin

 in Children of a Lesser God (1986), and Holly Hunter in The Piano (1993).] The Matrix won four Oscars in all its nominated categories (all technical-achievement areas) - Best Sound, Best Film Editing, Best Sound Effects Editing and Best Visual Effects.

In the three technical categories it was nominated in, the year's biggest box-office blockbuster and most vacuous film - Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace lost to The Matrix . Sleepy Hollow won Best Art Direction (its other two nominations were Best Cinematography and Best Sound Effects Editing). Oscar Snubs and Omissions: Best Director nominee Spike Jonze was denied a Best Picture nomination for his first feature-length film Being John Malkovich, while director Frank Darabont's Best Picture nominee The Green Mile was denied a Best Director nomination. Directors Mike Leigh, Anthony Minghella and Paul Thomas Anderson - for Topsy-Turvy, The Talented Mr. Ripley, and Magnolia respectively, were also lacking Best Director nods. The End of the Affair, Magnolia, and Being John Malkovich were all deprived of a Best Picture nomination. The most notable oversight of the year was for Jim Carrey who impersonated the late comic Andy Kaufman in Man on the Moon - he was a Golden-Globe winner for the role but was snubbed by the Academy for the second year in a row in a lead acting role - the previous year the insult revolved around his performance in The Truman Show.

[Even the smutty cartoonish South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut edged out Man on the Moon with its sole nomination For Best Original Song.] Other omissions include: perennial Oscar favorite Tom Hanks for his role as head guard Paul Edgecomb in The Green Mile Emily Watson for her role as an Irish mother in Angela's Ashes Thora Birch as Kevin Spacey's sullen daughter Jane and Mena Suvari as seductive cheerleader (and Spacey's love interest) Angela in American Beauty Philip Seymour Hoffman and Julianne Moore for performances in Magnolia Natalie Portman as a sensitive teenager in Anywhere But Here Bruce Willis for his role as psychologist Dr.

Malcolm Crowe in The Sixth Sense Reese Witherspoon as overachieving high-school student Tracy Enid Flick, and Matthew Broderick as an underpaid, resentful HS teacher in director Alexander Payne's Election - a film that received a sole Best Adapted Screenplay nomination Liev Schreiber for his role as a dull but decent husband named Marty, with a straying, unfaithful wife (Diane Lane) in A Walk on the Moon Six films were completely denied nominations: the late Stanley Kubrick's last movie Eyes Wide Shut, Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, the Internet-hyped The Blair Witch Project, Three Kings, Spike Lee's Summer of Sam, and Beavis and Butthead creator Mike Judge's comedic satire Office Space (with an unnominated performance by Gary Cole as the office boss). The Talented Mr. Ripley was shut out of many categories: Best Picture, Matt Damon (as jealous and then treacherous Tom Ripley) and Gwyneth Paltrow (as Jude Law's girlfriend Marge Sherwood) for acting nominations, and Best Director. The Insider's Al Pacino and Christopher Plummer (as CBS newsman Mike Wallace) were also denied nominations.

Being John Malkovich's John Cusack (as puppeteer Craig Schwartz), Cameron Diaz (as Cusack's dowdy, pet-obsessed wife Lotte) and John Malkovich (as Himself) were equally ignored. Toy Story 2, a beautifully-crafted computer-animated film was only able to secure a Best Original Song nomination ("When She Loved Me" by Randy Newman), and the animated adventure fantasy The Iron Giant went completely unnominated. Another major omission was the intriguing, bewildering, trend-setting and plot-twisting Spanish psychological drama Open Your Eyes (1997, Sp.) (aka Abre Los Ojos), released in the USA in 1999, with nominations lacking for Best Picture, Best Director (Alejandro Amenábar), Best Actor (Eduardo Noriega), Best Supporting Actress (Penelope Cruz), and Best Original Screenplay (Amenábar and Mateo Gil).

(The possible years for the film to be submitted as Spain's Foreign Language Film nominee were taken by Secrets of the Heart (1997, Sp.) (aka Secretos del corazón) in 1997, The Grandfather (1998, Sp.) (aka El Abuelo) in 1998, and this year's Best Foreign Language Film Winner, Pedro Almodóvar's superb All About My Mother (1999, Sp.) (aka Todo sobre mi madre)). Movie Review - - FILM REVIEW; Dad's Dead, And He's Still a Funny Guy - NYTimes.com FILM REVIEW; Dad's Dead, And He's Still a Funny Guy By JANET MASLIN Published: September 15, 1999 Lester Burnham, played with heavenly finesse by Kevin Spacey in his wittiest and most agile screen performance yet, is a buttoned-down 42-year-old who desperately needs to stop and smell the roses. But he won't get much joy from the ones in his suburban yard.

These fussed-over specimens are the handiwork of Lester's wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening), whom Lester introduces at the start of ''American Beauty'' with the same devilish acuity that keeps the rest of this satire so scalding. ''See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs? That's not an accident,'' Lester remarks. That Lester happens to be dead when he says this contributes significantly to the film's darker side. ''American Beauty,'' directed with terrific visual flair by the English stage director Sam Mendes (''Cabaret'') and replete with the kinds of delicate, eroticized power-playing vignettes found in his production of ''The Blue Room,'' strikes an unusually successful balance between the mordant and bright. Its vision of curdled suburbia, where Lester's marriage is ''a commercial for how normal we are when we're anything but,'' is also somehow embraced with unlikely affection. And it manages to end on a note of acceptance, even in the wake of its forced yet brilliantly staged, devastating climax. As written crisply by Alan Ball (who, like Mr.

Mendes, makes a most attention-getting film debut), ''American Beauty'' takes aim at targets that are none too fresh. His Lester is not the first super-bland suburban paragon to drop out with a vengeance, nor does Carolyn amount to a new take on the ambitious, frigid wife. But as in bourgeoisie-barbecuing movies from ''The Graduate'' to ''Election,'' it's the little things that turn the stereotype into something memorable, from the sugary sound of ''Bali H'ai'' at an otherwise glum Burnham family dinner to the father-daughter give-and-take between Lester and teen-age Jane (Thora Birch, in a veritable Christina Ricci role). ''So Janie, how was school?'' he asks, to which the sarcastic reply is: ''It was spectacular, Dad.'' The film is set in motion when Lester, also none too originally, goes ape for a nubile blond cheerleader (Mena Suvari, lately seen in ''American Pie''). That she happens to be Jane's friend doesn't stop Lester from imagining red rose petals floating out of her open sweater. (Mr.

Mendes's rueful, cleanly minimalist camera style often gives way to such eloquent flights of fancy.) She is stimulus enough for him to wake up out of a marriage-long coma and start considering life's livelier possibilities. ''Red 1970 Firebird, the car I always wanted and now I have it,'' says Lester of his new vehicle, the one that suits his new career at a fast food restaurant. ''I rule!'' Mr. Spacey's way of wringing every bit of nasty hilarity out of a line like that is itself worth the price of admission. (His enunciation of ''Don't interrupt me, honey'' is on an evil par with Jack Nicholson ''Heeere's Johnny!'') But ''American Beauty'' is also loaded with equally colorful supporting characters who seem to drift casually through the film until all their fates converge. The teen-age voyeur next door is Ricky Fitts (Wes Bentley), whose mother (Allison Janney) is as wordlessly miserable as Carolyn is pert. (Ms.

Bening is scathingly funny, and also quite graceful, as a walking monument to despicable values.) Meanwhile, Ricky's ramrod father (Chris Cooper, doing a wonderful deadpan) is a military man notably out of touch with everyone around him. When two neighbors who cohabit and are both named Jim describe themselves as partners, Ricky's father wants to know what business they're in. (Tax attorney and anesthesiologist.) ''American Beauty'' hammers heavily on the notion that nonconformity is needed here. That thought is repeated frequently and never carries a whit of surprise. But scene by scene, the film is full of its own brand of corrosive novelty, from the way Lester transforms himself in hopes of attracting the cheerleader to the revitalizing effects of Carolyn's acrobatic affair with a fellow real estate agent (a very smooth Peter Gallagher). As these characters struggle viciously -- and hilariously -- to escape the middle-class doldrums, the film also evinces a real and ever more stirring compassion. As it detects increasingly vital signs of life behind the absurd surfaces that Mr. Mendes presents so beautifully, the film takes on a gravity to match its evil zest.

There's a haunting power to Lester's last narrative note to the viewer: that if you don't share the film's piercing vision of what really matters, someday you will. ''American Beauty'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It includes profanity, nudity, masturbation and less solitary sexual situations, some real and some imagined. AMERICAN BEAUTY Directed by Sam Mendes; written by Alan Ball; director of photography, Conrad L. Hall; edited by Tariq Anwar and Chris Greenbury; music by Thomas Newman; production designer, Naomi Shohan; produced by Bruce Cohen and Dan Jinks; released by Dreamworks Pictures. Running time: 115 minutes. This film is rated R. WITH: Kevin Spacey (Lester Burnham), Annette Bening (Carolyn Burnham), Thora Birch (Jane Burnham), Wes Bentley (Ricky Fitts), Mena Suvari (Angela Hayes), Peter Gallagher (Buddy Kane), Allison Janney (Barbara Fitts), Chris Cooper (Colonel Fitts), Scott Bakula (Jim No. 1) and Sam Robards (Jim No. 2).

Question: Who was the British Director of the film 'American Beauty'?
Answer: SAM MENDES